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31 January 2011

Egypt Is America's Ally, Not Mubarak

In his OpEd article in the January 31, 2011, Wall Street Journal, Stephen Hadley wonders what the effect of abandoning an ally would be on the perception of the U.S. by other nations. However, it is important to distinguish that our ally is not Hosni Mubarak. It is Egypt. It is incumbent on us to know whether the leader of an allied nation still represents the predominant portion of the population.

Owing to the information revolution, the police cannot control Egypt like they used to. Our interests in the Middle East require that we rely on a controlling authority for collaboration in political, military, and strategic matters. It would be nice for that authority to be a democratic government; but it is not our role to install one. That is up to Egyptians to do.

It is up to us to be vigilant and correctly assess the strengths of the competing factions in Egyptian governance so we maintain good relations with whomever will dominate the country. Violent oppression will probably not settle the issue--not by us nor by the Egyptian police or military.

27 January 2011

Obama’s SOTU

The State of the Union address has become nothing more than a pep talk to the partisans of the President in the Congress, outlining the programs that he will advocate in order to assure his and their reelections. The crossing of the aisle by those partisans for the 2011 SOTU could symbolize a transformation of that function from advocacy of victory by the President’s party over its anticipated opponents to advocacy of victory by incumbents regardless of their party.

That is what made President Obama’s speech so apparently wish-washy. He accurately captured the impatience of the country with the partisan bickering of the past, and seemed to try to lay out a small bore approach in government actions in the future that would be more in keeping with what is the appropriate federal role in assuring the competitiveness and success of America. It is ironic that Daniel Henninger in the January 27, 2011, Wall Street Journal, bemoans the lack of sufficient hype in the SOTU address. The WSJ commonly calls for the federal government to get out of the way of the private sector. By failing to set inspirational goals, perhaps that is what Mr. Obama is trying to do.

Better Engagement than Proselytization

America is the leading example of the effects of immigration on the form of government. The brave souls who abandon their homelands in search of economic, political, or religious freedom by starting over their lives in a new land, challenging their comfort as much when it was unexplored as when it now is intellectually unbounded and unrestrained, possess a common instinct for individual achievement that is often missing from those they have left behind. That explains why the democratic form of government has so well suited America.

Of course, the idea of democracy was invented and developed in other societies long before America’s revolution, and continues to characterize the governments of prosperous and educated societies throughout the world. However, certain societies have cultural histories of acquiescence to social elites that are even older than the invention of democracy over two millennia ago in Greece. Certainly, China’s culture is one of them.

For that reason, Elliott Abrams’ prescription of “Less ‘Engagement,’ More Democracy” in the January 23, 2011, New York Times for the President’s future foreign policy would extend a mistaken strategy that led the U.S. into Iraq. It no longer takes physical displacement for adventurous individuals to give vent to their independent spirits—the information revolution has made that possible within the borders of their native lands (cf. India). However, preaching the adoption of the democratic form of government that has served us so well to the nationals of other culturally different countries (in Asia or Africa, for instance) can lead to civil strife and human suffering.

The Chinese leadership has learned that entrepreneurship and intellectual freedom can be compatible with an authoritarian system of government as long as everyone plays by certain rules of behavior. If it is the rules of behavior that one objects to in his country, then physical displacement to a society that operates on a democratic model may still be required for that individual’s personal freedom. But those rules may not be a burden for the overwhelming majority of people in that culture; and there’s a lot for the rest of us to gain by ‘engaging’ with them that we would forfeit, or even destroy, by trying to convert them into frustrated political activists.

21 January 2011

Politics Is Not a Zero-Sum Game

In his 1/19/2011 essay, "Why We're a Divided Nation," Walter E. Williams contrasts market allocation of resources with political allocation. The former is presented as conflict-reducing, with a positive result from tolerance and collaboration. The latter is characterized as conflict-enhancing, with the award of a privilege to one group coming only at the expense of an opposing group.

Among the political issues that he says exemplify the antagonistic dynamic are racial preferences, school prayers, trade restrictions, welfare, and Obamacare. Personal preferences for computer technologies, music, and sports admirably escape such hostilities. Finding a cooperative way to resolve policy differences, like getting along with the devotees of alternatives to one's own tastes, is what politicians are supposed to do. Outside of life-and-death situations, there is always a way to achieve that cooperative goal. Those who confine political issues to the box of a zero-sum game usually are using its walls to force an outcome that is favorable to ulterior objectives, whether they be ideological or materialist.

In the end, human progress on this planet depends on our collaborating with each other to defeat common enemies like disease, poverty and ignorance--oh, and of course tyranny. If it's liberty we want above everything else, let it be responsible liberty, in which we do all we can to make our entire community healthy, wealthy and wise.

19 January 2011

Covert Action’s Comeback

Max Boot is wrong to celebrate what he characterizes as the comeback of Covert Action in his OpEd article in the January 5, 2011 Wall Street Journal. Support for a revolutionary movement in Iran should come from non-governmental sources in order to be legitimate. The rules of international relations (sometimes referred to as international law) forbid the overthrow of a non-aggressive regime by another state, even if that regime’s actions are repressive and disregard the human rights of its own subjects.
No government can legitimately undermine the government of another nation covertly. It exists in part to protect its citizens from the depredations of another state through defensive actions, which may include supporting the overthrow of that government by its own citizens. If a group of citizens of the first government wishes to act on its own to support the overthrow of the second government, they may wish to act covertly in order to avoid retaliation or punishment under civil law. In order to achieve that objective, those citizens may solicit the support of foreign individuals, organizations or governments. In the last case, those citizens are in effect offering themselves as the foreign government’s fifth column in their own country.
However, when that foreign government takes direct action against the stability of another country’s government openly or covertly, it is committing an act of war. The practice of international relations awards certain immunities to well-behaved governments that are not honored when those governments are at war. Mr. Boot is advocating the abandonment of those immunities (such as the exemption of diplomats from civil regulations, sovereign exemption from taxes and police oversight, etc.) in order to undertake covert action in pursuit of our government’s unilateral interests abroad. He is free, of course, covertly to foment non-governmental support for civil libertarians in other countries at the risk of being punished by his own government for violating its exclusive prerogatives abroad; but following his prescription for a reinvigoration of undercover sedition in other countries would make his government an international outlaw deserving of official sanction by the world community, including retaliation against its citizens and businesses. It’s best to leave that covert action in private hands.

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